206 • CHAPTER 8 Everyday Memory and Memory Errors
The stimulus photographs were created by giving 12 Duke
University students digital cameras and telling them to take
pictures of 40 specifi ed campus locations over a 10-day period.
After taking the photographs, each participant was shown his or
her own photos (A-photos) and photos taken by other participants
(L-photos). A few days later, they saw their own photos, the
L-photos they had seen before, and some new L-photos they had
never seen. As participants indicated whether each stimulus was
an A-photo, an L-photo they had seen before, or a new L-photo,
their brain activity was measured in an MRI scanner.
The brain scans showed that A-photos and L-photos acti-
vated many of the same structures in the brain—mainly ones like
the MTL that are associated with episodic memory, as well as an
area in the parietal cortex that is involved in processing scenes
● Figure 8.2a). However, the A-photos also activated regions
associated with processing information about the self, with
memory for visual space, and with recollection (memory associ-
ated with “mental time travel” that we discussed in Chapter 6).
Figure 8.2b shows the greater A-photo activation compared to
L-photo activation in the hippocampus. Thus, the pictures of a
particular location that people took themselves elicited memo-
ries associated with taking the picture, and therefore activated
a more extensive network of brain areas, than pictures of the
same location that were taken by someone else. This activation
refl ects the richness of experiencing autobiographical memories,
as compared to laboratory memories. Autobiographical memo-
ries can also elicit emotions, which activates another area of
the brain (which we will describe shortly) called the amygdala.MEMORY OVER THE LIFE SPAN
What determines which particular life events we will remember
years later? Personal milestones such as graduating from college
or receiving a marriage proposal stand out, as do highly emo-
tional events such as surviving a car accident (Pillemer, 1998).
Events that become signifi cant parts of a person’s life tend to
be remembered well. For example, going out to dinner with someone for the fi rst time
might stand out if you ended up having a long-term relationship with that person, but
the same dinner date might be far less memorable if you never saw the person again.
Transition points in people’s lives appear to be particularly memorable. This is
illustrated by what Wellesley College juniors and seniors said when they were asked
to recall the most infl uential event during their freshman year. Most responses were
descriptions of events that occurred in September. When alumni were asked the same
question, they remembered more events from September of their freshman year and
from the end of their senior year—another transition point (Pillemer et al., 1996).
A particularly interesting result occurs when participants over 40 are asked
to remember events in their lives. For these participants, memory is high for recent
events and for events experienced in adolescence and early adulthood (between 10
and 30 years of age; ● Figure 8.3; Conway, 1996; Rubin et al., 1998). This enhanced
memory for adolescence and young adulthood found in people over 40 is called the
reminiscence bump. Why are adolescence and young adulthood special times for encod-
ing memories? We will describe three hypotheses, all based on the idea that special life
events are happening during adolescence and young adulthood.
Clare Rathbone and coworkers (2008) propose that memory is enhanced for events
that occur as a person’s self-image or life identity is being formed. We will call this idea
the self-image hypothesis of the reminiscence bump. Rathborne and coworkers base this
idea on the results of an experiment in which a group of participants with an average(b) Hippocampus(a) Parietal cortexA photos = more activation●FIGURE 8.2 (a) fMRI response of an area in the parietal
cortex showing areas activated by both the A-photos and
the L-photos during the memory test. The graph on the right
indicates that activation was the same for A-photos and
L-photos. (b) Hippocampus activation (red areas at bottom)
by the A-photos and the L-photos. The graph indicates that in
this area of the brain, activation was greater for the A-photos.
(Source: R. Cabeza et al., “Brain Activity During Episodic Retrieval of
Autobiographical and Laboratory Events: An fMRI Study Using a Novel
Photo Paradigm,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16, 1583–1594, 2004.)Copyright 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part.